Lt. Col. Cauley

In March, Cecil finally got promoted to Lt. Col.! We are so proud of him. Here are pictures from his promotion ceremony. Ella is loving all of the excitement.

After the ceremony, it was time to drag some sticker covered little girls home.

Cecil's grandmother was able to come, and the kids loved getting to see her.

"Hey, you look just like me!"

All of our family that came

Our nanny Heather and her husband Kevin (who is in the Navy) came. Here is Kevin with their son Hunter.

Helen and I say hi to Grandmother

Mischevious Alex

Adorable Ella

Cecil and his boss, General Tyre

Lt. Col. Cauley giving his speech

We look very serious here so I think this is the part where they are reading the official proclamation that he is now a Lt. Col.

During the ceremony, I tried to keep the kids quiet with lots of books and stickers. Kendal is holding Helen. Kendal is one of my law students who also has nanny experience. She filled in for Heather for about 5 months while Heather was on maternity leave.

Here we are changing his rank from major to lt. col.

This is General Burnett changing Cecil's rank. General Burnett is the leader of the entire National Guard for Florida and is one of the people that Cecil works for.

Leaning in for the congratulatory kiss

General Tyre and General Nelson change the rank on shirt

Cecil was even thoughtful enough to give me flowers on his promotion day

Alex playing with stickers and cars

Ella eating her snacks

Mommy and Alex

Miss Heather helping Helen get her shoe on

"Will someone pick me up?"

Grandma to the Rescue!

In early March, there was a couple of days where all of us were sick. The kids picked up some bug and spread it to each other and to Cecil and me. When it got really bad, I took all the kids to the doctor and found out they all had some bad gunk. They all got put on antibiotics and two had to have breathing treatments for their coughing. Earlier that day, I had gone to the doctor and been put on antibiotics and ordered "to rest and stay in bed for a few days." Apparently she did not see the part in my chart where it said I had 2 year old triplets. I felt awful. It was the kind of crawl under your bed and not move for several days awful. But I could not ignore my three sick kids. And did I mention that Cecil was out of town for several days?? At this point, I have no voice left and I cannot stop coughing. My breaking point was when I was heading home from the pediatrician and I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up our 5 new prescriptions. They said the prescriptions were not ready yet and to come back in an hour. Well, it was already 5:30 and in an hour, these kids were going to be in bed and I had no way of getting back there to pick up any prescriptions. So I did what anyone would do - I called my mommy as I was sobbing. I don't remember much of that conversation except that she said she was on her way. My mom flew down the next day and spent the week with us and nursed us all back to health. I don't know what I would have done without her. She managed to not get sick either! We were all so sick that I ended up pulling my rib muscles from coughing so hard and the kids all ended up with ear infections a few weeks later. That was another fun visit to the doctor - three double ear infections and two eye infections - but at least I was not sick too that time! Anyway, here is a picture of Grandma sitting with Helen while she gets her breathing treatment.

Cooking at the counter - licking the brownie bowl - the best part!

Chocolate face Helen

Alex loves the licking the bowl part

Ella likes hanging out and getting her turn at the bowl

Another adventure in March was the discovery that the kids could climb out of their cribs. After several nights of threats did not work and I would walk in on little ones running free in the morning, we decided it was inevitable that we would be dragged into the next phrase of toddlerhood. I wept for my dream of them being in their cribs until they were 10. So we decided to take the sides off of their cribs and see how that goes. Here's Ella supervising Daddy as he reconfigures the cribs.

Ella

Alex playing with his cars in the bonus room

Brushing the leaves off of the front porch

Helen

Ella

Ella is cooking in her kitchen

Alex being shy

The terrific three on the back porch

Happy Valentine's Day!

Alex playing with his trains on the kitchen floor

Ella lines up all of her playdough cans

Helen needs help getting her playdough open

Alex wants Mommy to push the buttons on this thing to make Mickey come on the TV

Helen digs into her Valentine's Day candy

Ella tosses the stickers and goes right for the chocolate. Who knew we got chocolate for Valentine's Day?

Alex eats a chocolate heart lollipop

One of our favorite new things is helping mommy cook. Everyone pulls a chair up to the counter and helps mommy stir and pour (Helen found one of Cecil's headlamps from Afghanistan and wore it around her neck all day with the light on)

More cooking - and of course we have to wear our ballerina tutus when we cook!

I took the girls to a tea party for a bridal shower. This is Ella outside playing with the tire swing.

Helen playing with the swing

I know I have been terrible about keeping up with the blog lately. I have had a very busy semester at work that left me with no free time. The semester is finally over so I am getting caught up on everything that has fallen behind. That also means that I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked over the past few months, so the next few blog posts might be a little thin. Time goes so fast, and I find that I need six hands just to keep the kids in check, not to mention another free set of hands for taking pictures. They are getting so big so fast. They are talking a lot and are becoming quite the little negotiators -both with me and with each other. Hopefully there is more to come in the next few days to bring you up to speed on triplet life!

Disney and Strep Throat

One Sunday we took the kids to the symphony - they were doing Green Eggs and Ham set to music. It was great and the kids loved it

Helen and Alex at the symphony

The last weekend in February we headed to Disney with my mom and my brother and his family. The day before we left, Ella came down with strep throat. Being the great mother that I am, I packed her up with her antibiotics and we set off for Disney! Luckily the antibiotics kicked in by the second day and she was just fine. They all loved Disney (but I don't think they had as much fun as mom and dad did :) Here's Ella and me at the character breakfast.

Matthew, Andrew, and Alex with Pluto

Uncle Brad makes Ella laugh

Alex and Minnie (with Helen's sticker covered head in the way)

Matthew, Caroline, and Andrew with Goofy, and Alex looking on

Ella and Alex give Donald a hug

Grandma, Ella, and Alex say Hi to Mickey

Mommy holding a very scared Helen - she freaked out anytime one of the characters came out and held onto me for dear life. I think she liked the concept of going to Disney and seeing Mickey, but being confronted with a six foot tall version of him was a different story

Ella and Grandma spot Mickey

Alex trying to figure what he wants to eat next from the all you can eat buffet

Ella plasters herself with more stickers. She had one over her mouth and moved it to take a drink, then put it right back over her mouth

Andrew, Alex, and Matthew

Ella's sticker fad is catching on and Alex and Helen now stick them all over their faces too

Sticker covered Helen

One of the most exciting parts of the trip were the video games in the hotel lobby. Good thing Grandma was as sucker and kept feeding quarters into the machines for them. Here's Ella.

Alex trying to drive the racing game - too bad his feet do not even reach the pedals

Ella takes a turn in the driver's seat

The statue of Mickey in the hotel lobby was as close to the real thing as they were willing to get

Everyone wants to give Mickey big hugs when we first got there

Helen and Grandma at dinner

Alex, Mommy, and Ella at dinner

Helen standing in line to see Tigger and Pooh

Ella gives Pooh a hug

Everyone with Tigger and Pooh (notice the Helen is as far away from them as possible and still in the picture)

Ella give Tigger a hug

Pooh tries to say Hi to Helen

Next we went to Pooh's playground to play. Here's Ella coming down the slide

Helen coming down the slide

Mommy stops to fix Helen's ponytails

Everyone likes to play on the bridge

Helen and Alex playing

Alex loved the merry go round

Ella and Grandma on the merry go round

While it was strictly prohibited by Disney, Alex loved riding the scooter with Grandma

Alex was fasinated with watching the show at Cinderella's castle (and he picked his Mickey hat out all by himself - we were very good Disney consumers while we were there)